Proxy's Vial
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: You left without even saying goodbye...
1. Part 1

**A/N:** Watched this on the aeroplane and fell in love with the Alice/Hatter pairing. And what better way to fix that than with fanfiction? :D Written for the Advent Ca lender Challenge, Day 5 – post for one or more what-ifs (the what if 1) What if Alice returned to the real world without the help of the Jabberwocky's poison), and for the Diversity Writing Challenge, c6 – write a threeshot with chapters exactly 500 words long.

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 **Proxy's Vial  
** _Part 1_

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The Jabberwocky's fangs bite deep into her shoulder, and she feels the Wonderland slip away. There's the Hatter's red hair – a flash – and then the dull brown of a tree on the Ascot estate and she knows it's not from Wonderland instead because it's so dull. But then the tree from the Ascot estate vanishes again and there's the Jabberwocky's snarling mouth, rearing back for another strike, and the sword in her hands –

And then the dull brown is back, and the sword is slipping away, and she realises what's happened.

 _Papa… I've had a strange dream._

And she knows she's got precious seconds left to end things before she's gone from this world.

 _Just pinch yourself and you'll wake up._

She supposes that having a Jabberwocky bite your shoulder had the same effect.

She tightens her grip on her sword. It phases to her fingers, and she closes her eyes and pleads with it silently.

She isn't done. It solidifies under her palm and she opens her eyes. The Jabberwocky looms above.

And before reality can suffocate her, she screams and swings her sword in a mighty arc.

And then she finds herself on the grass, her mother mopping her brow and muttering of heat strokes.

She struggles up. Her mind is still in the battle, but part of her is travelling before and beyond that, to another battle.

'And Hamish is ever so worried…'

 _Hamish!_ Of course. But facing the Jabberwocky might have been an easier task after all because her entire body is shaking and she must go back to that glasshouse and deny his offered hand. Because she cannot marry him. She sees the Hatter's red hair again, but it's gone and there's just a few ladies from the ball, with Margaret at their head, and all of them are muttering light sympathies and words of encouragement as though it were excitement and the heat that made her swoon.

Let them try getting bitten by a Jabberwocky, she thinks, but it was truly a silly thought. The inhabitants of Wonderland have little concept of humans, after all, or their world. It is so magical: talking animals, monsters, magic spells. And the five impossible things before breakfast – well, she's done more than five overall.

She remembers the list she made as she walked towards her foe, armoured and with the sword she'd so perilously won. _I can defeat the Jabberwocky_ : that was the last. Had she done it? She hopes so, but the bleak brown trees of the Ascot estate don't give way to the truth and so she cannot know.

'Are you ready, my dear?'

 _Ready?_ She supposes she must be ready. The Wonderland doesn't return, and there's only this world. And she's sorry she can't watch the aftermath. She's afraid there is no aftermath, but she can only hope there is, that her final strike has won the battle they brought her for…

And now she has a different sort of battle to fight.

'Ready.'


	2. Part 2

**Proxy's Vial  
** _Part 2_

 **.**

He watches the fight from start to end, even as his own sword swings to slice through foes.

Those foes he cuts down are nothing, nothing, compared to the Jabberwocky and he only wishes he could be up there too. But the scroll is clear: Alice and Alice alone stands on the rock, sword raised high as though to hack of the Jabberwocky's head –

And there's nothing in the scroll to say whether she succeeds or fails, so they can only hope, and pray.

She's there finally. On that rock. Standing – but the Jabberwocky descends before she raises her sword.

His scream of warning is swallowed by her cry of pain, and the Jabberwocky's fangs gleam a fleeting red.

He wonders if he's been hit instead, because the swords clashing around him seem to grow dull and she seems to fade in and out of existence, and the Jabberwocky looms closer.

But then she raises her sword – a moment, frozen like the image in the scroll – and slices an arc through the air and its throat.

The victory cheers are swallowed by his cry of horror as she vanishes entirely.

'Home,' said the white queen as she drifts to him with a knowing smile on her face. 'Like a pinch, she wakes up from her dream.' She strokes his face as though to comfort him.

He looks bleakly at the rock, where the Jabberwocky's headless body now slumped. Of course, he'd known she'd leave eventually. 'But – ' He stutters the word. Perhaps he looks as mad as his namesake, because the queen gives him a pitying look and drifts away.

Their – Alice's friends – crowd him, mumbling of her victory, her absence, what's still happening on the field. The wound seems to have cut a little deeper for him. They cut into his tongue, and ears. Until the others are standing a little back and the white queen is before him again, this time with a vial.

'My champion's prize.' She smiles demurely. 'Since she's not here to receive it for yourself…' She offers it.

He reaches out a shaking hand and takes it. The Jabberwocky's poison, still dripping from its fangs but wasting into the soil. But this vial held some: pure, undiluted. 'Why me?'

She says nothing. The others murmur: some confused, some dissatisfied. The hatter cuts across them. 'Alice, of course. Sweet, sweet Alice.' He bursts into tears.

'Not sure I call her sweet,' muttered the dormouse, though he sounded sad as well.

He grasps his question's reply. 'Can I bring her back?' He wonders even as he asks the question. Maybe she wanted to go back. Maybe she'd be sad.

'No,' says the queen.

 _So it's impossible, anyway…_

'It is your wish now, so it may directly only affect you.' She smiles wider. 'We will miss you.'

He considers her words, and the wish comes to him. He can go to Alice, to her world.

He unstoppers the bottle and swallows its contents in a single gulp.


	3. Part 3

**Proxy's Vial  
** _Part 3_

 **.**

She doesn't regret her choice. She won't be a Lady but she also won't marry a man so woefully incompatible.

What she does regret is having left the Wonderland without having said goodbye. She can list all their names but the Hatter is at the forefront of them. The kindest, the most inspiring, the most amusing, and the best friend she'd ever known.

 _Yes, you're mad…but that's a good thing._

Oh, how she wishes he existed in this world. How she wishes she'd met him earlier, or remembered beyond those fading dreams. How she wishes her father could have met him. They would have gotten along smashingly, she's sure.

And nothing will be quite like that bright red mop of hair of his, she's sure.

 _Red…like that!_

She starts, then laughs when she realises it is the Hatter, in the flesh, looking as lost as she had been when she first arrived in Wonderland. 'Hatter!' she cries. 'Oh, dear Hatter. Am I dreaming again?'

She doesn't care if she is, though she does wish the drab trees of the Ascot estate would change back into those tall green ones from Wonderland.

'Alice!' The Hatter seizes seizes her in a tight embrace. 'Alice; you vanished and I didn't know what to do.'

'Oh.' She feels a stab of guilt, but really, what could she have done? 'The Jabberwocky – ' And then she remembers, asks in alarm: 'Did I slay it? Is it gone?'

'It's gone!' And he swings her around like her father used to do. 'It's dead and the Red Queen and her Knave are exiled.'

'Then everything's alright.' She sighs in relief, then frowns. 'But Hatter, you're –'

'Are you upset at me?' He looks abashed, and he steps away from her like she would scold or strike him. 'I confess, I didn't think this through very well. Just that I missed you so terribly that I thought if I couldn't bring you back to Wonderland, I'd like to stay with you forever instead…'

'Hatter…' Her heart pounds more happily than when Hamish Ascot had gotten down on one knee and proposed to her. 'Dear Hatter.' She clasps his hands. 'I'm sorry I left Wonderland so suddenly. I really couldn't help it.'

'I know.' He looks into her eyes. 'I spent nine years waiting for you, you know.'

She wants to cry at that. Her memories aren't all back yet but she can feel the longing he spoke of, echoed by herself. A sparse meeting then, more substance now – and the Hatter has become the most important being in the world for her. 'You're simply a dream.' She gives a watery laugh. 'Simply a dream. But how did you come?'

'Your prize.' He gives her an empty vial, barely stained. 'Jabberwocky poison. Once dead, it gives the person who drinks it one heartfelt wish.'

'Oh, Hatter.' There's no clearer confession than that. She hugs him, then laughs again, more lightly. 'Ooh, they're going to simply _explode_.'

But neither care.


End file.
